Rives: Reinventing the encyclopedia game

63,800 views ・ 2012-06-27

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:00
Translator: Morton Bast Reviewer: Thu-Huong Ha
0
0
7000
00:15
So, last month, the Encyclopaedia Britannica announced
1
15871
3386
00:19
that it is going out of print
2
19257
1749
00:21
after 244 years, which made me nostalgic,
3
21006
3825
00:24
because I remember playing a game with the colossal encyclopedia set in my hometown library
4
24831
5647
00:30
back when I was a kid,
5
30478
1249
00:31
maybe 12 years old.
6
31727
1343
00:33
And I wondered if I could update that game,
7
33070
2640
00:35
not just for modern methods,
8
35710
2016
00:37
but for the modern me.
9
37726
1704
00:39
So I tried.
10
39430
1136
00:40
I went to an online encyclopedia,
11
40566
1307
00:41
Wikipedia, and I entered the term "Earth."
12
41873
2758
00:44
You can start anywhere, this time I chose Earth.
13
44631
2666
00:47
And the first rule of the game is pretty simple.
14
47297
2478
00:49
You just have to read the article
15
49775
1491
00:51
until you find something you don't know,
16
51266
2588
00:53
and preferably something your dad doesn't even know.
17
53854
3105
00:56
And in this case, I quickly found this:
18
56959
2879
00:59
The furthest point from the center of the Earth
19
59838
2296
01:02
is not the tip of Mount Everest, like I might have thought,
20
62134
2473
01:04
it's the tip of this mountain: Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador.
21
64607
3296
01:07
The Earth spins, of course, as it travels around the sun,
22
67903
3520
01:11
so the Earth bulges a little bit around the middle,
23
71423
1984
01:13
like some Earthlings.
24
73407
1127
01:14
And even though Mount Chimborazo isn't the tallest mountain in the Andes,
25
74534
4890
01:19
it's one degree away from the equator,
26
79424
1671
01:21
it's riding that bulge, and so the summit of Chimborazo
27
81095
3000
01:24
is the farthest point on Earth from the center of the Earth.
28
84095
3400
01:27
And it is really fun to say.
29
87495
2952
01:30
So I immediately decided,
30
90447
943
01:31
this is going to be the name of the game,
31
91390
1897
01:33
or my new exclamation.
32
93287
1487
01:34
You can use it at TED.
33
94774
970
01:35
Chimborazo, right?
34
95744
1329
01:37
It's like "eureka" and "bingo" had a baby.
35
97073
1702
01:38
I didn't know that;
36
98775
1729
01:40
that's pretty cool.
37
100504
1630
01:42
Chimborazo!
38
102134
1665
01:43
So the next rule of the game is also pretty simple.
39
103799
3625
01:47
You just have to find another term and look that up.
40
107424
2887
01:50
Now in the old days, that meant getting out a volume
41
110311
2165
01:52
and browsing through it alphabetically,
42
112476
1635
01:54
maybe getting sidetracked,
43
114111
1039
01:55
that was fun.
44
115150
705
01:55
Nowadays there are hundreds of links to choose from.
45
115855
2631
01:58
I can go literally anywhere in the world,
46
118486
1952
02:00
I think since I was already in Ecuador,
47
120438
1729
02:02
I just decided to click on the word "tropical."
48
122167
2711
02:04
That took me to this wet and warm band of the tropics
49
124878
5241
02:10
that encircles the Earth.
50
130119
1185
02:11
Now that's the Tropic of Cancer in the north
51
131304
2461
02:13
and the Tropic of Capricorn in the south,
52
133765
1513
02:15
that much I knew,
53
135278
808
02:16
but I was surprised to learn this little fact:
54
136086
2201
02:18
Those are not cartographers' lines,
55
138287
2266
02:20
like latitude or the borders between nations,
56
140553
3605
02:24
they are astronomical phenomena caused by the Earth's tilt,
57
144158
2731
02:26
and they change.
58
146889
1605
02:28
They move; they go up, they go down.
59
148494
2650
02:31
In fact, for years, the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn
60
151144
3199
02:34
have been steadily drifting towards the equator
61
154343
2640
02:36
at the rate of about 15 meters per year,
62
156983
2497
02:39
and nobody told me that.
63
159480
1166
02:40
I didn't know it.
64
160646
824
02:41
Chimborazo!
65
161470
1418
02:42
So to keep the game going, I just have to find another term and look that one up.
66
162888
5776
02:48
Since I'm already in the tropics, I chose "Tropical rainforest."
67
168664
3799
02:52
Famous for its diversity, human diversity.
68
172463
2283
02:54
There are still dozens and dozens of uncontacted tribes living on this planet.
69
174746
5526
03:00
They're all over the globe, but virtually all of them live in tropical rainforests.
70
180272
4478
03:04
This is the only place you can go nowadays and not get "friended."
71
184750
4977
03:09
The link that I clicked on here was exotic in the beginning and then absolutely mysterious at the very end.
72
189727
8865
03:18
It mentioned leopards and ring-tailed coatis and poison dart frogs and boa constrictors and then
73
198592
6760
03:25
coleoptera,
74
205352
1935
03:27
which turn out to be beetles.
75
207287
3239
03:30
Now I clicked on this on purpose,
76
210526
2224
03:32
but if I'd somehow gotten here by mistake,
77
212750
1554
03:34
it does remind me, for the band, see "The Beatles,"
78
214304
2097
03:36
for the car see "Volkswagon Beetle,"
79
216401
1606
03:38
but I am here for beetle beetles.
80
218007
2737
03:40
This is the most successful order on the planet by far.
81
220744
3870
03:44
Something between 20 and 25 percent of all life forms on the planet,
82
224614
4250
03:48
including plants, are beetles.
83
228864
1806
03:50
That means the next time you are in the grocery store,
84
230670
2183
03:52
take a look at the four people ahead of you in line.
85
232853
2202
03:55
Statistically, one of you is a beetle.
86
235055
3017
03:58
And if it is you, you are astonishingly well adapted.
87
238072
5598
04:03
There are scavenger beetles that pick the skin and flesh off of bones in museums.
88
243670
5033
04:08
There are predator beetles, that attack other insects
89
248703
3081
04:11
and still look pretty cute to us.
90
251784
1783
04:13
There are beetles that roll little balls of dung
91
253567
3504
04:17
great distances across the desert floor to feed to their hatchlings.
92
257071
3295
04:20
This reminded the ancient Egyptians of their god Khepri,
93
260366
3784
04:24
who renews the ball of the sun every morning,
94
264150
3314
04:27
which is how that dung-rolling scarab
95
267464
2023
04:29
became that sacred scarab on the breastplate of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun.
96
269487
5368
04:34
Beetles, I was reminded, have the most romantic flirtation in the animal kingdom.
97
274855
5928
04:40
Fireflies are not flies, fireflies are beetles.
98
280783
2583
04:43
Fireflies are coleoptera, and coleoptera communicate in other ways as well.
99
283366
5312
04:48
Like my next link:
100
288678
1376
04:50
The chemical language of pheromones.
101
290054
2939
04:52
Now the pheromone page took me to a video of a sea urchin having sex.
102
292993
6053
04:59
Yeah.
103
299046
3680
05:02
(Laughter)
104
302726
3088
05:05
And the link to aphrodisiac.
105
305814
2072
05:07
Now that's something that increases sexual desire,
106
307886
1664
05:09
possibly chocolate.
107
309550
2201
05:11
There is a compound in chocolate called phenethylamine
108
311751
3503
05:15
that might be an aphrodisiac.
109
315254
1370
05:16
But as the article mentions,
110
316624
2255
05:18
because of enzyme breakdown,
111
318879
1215
05:20
it's unlikely that phenethylamine will reach your brain if taken orally.
112
320094
4170
05:24
So those of you who only eat your chocolate, you might have to experiment.
113
324264
3110
05:27
The link I clicked on here,
114
327374
3810
05:31
"sympathetic magic," mostly because I understand what both of those words mean.
115
331184
5199
05:36
But not when they're together like that.
116
336383
2152
05:38
I do like sympathy. I do like magic.
117
338535
2991
05:41
So when I click on "sympathetic magic,"
118
341526
1345
05:42
I get sympathetic magic and voodoo dolls.
119
342871
4805
05:47
This is the boy in me getting lucky again.
120
347676
2148
05:49
Sympathetic magic is imitation.
121
349824
2519
05:52
If you imitate something, maybe you can have an effect on it.
122
352343
2407
05:54
That's the idea behind voodoo dolls, and possibly also cave paintings.
123
354750
4434
05:59
The link to cave paintings takes me to some of the oldest art known to humankind.
124
359184
5080
06:04
I would love to see Google maps inside some of these caves.
125
364264
2007
06:06
We've got tens-of-thousands-years-old artwork.
126
366271
3496
06:09
Common themes around the globe include large wild animals and tracings of human hands,
127
369767
4999
06:14
usually the left hand.
128
374766
2321
06:17
We have been a dominantly right-handed tribe for millenia,
129
377087
4463
06:21
so even though I don't know why a paleolithic person would trace his hand
130
381550
5336
06:26
or blow pigment on it from a tube,
131
386886
1986
06:28
I can easily picture how he did it.
132
388872
2592
06:31
And I really don't think it's that different form our own little dominant hand avatar
133
391464
4502
06:35
right there that I'm going to use now to click on the term for "hand,"
134
395966
3332
06:39
go to the page for "hand," where I found the most fun and possibly embarrassing bit of trivia
135
399298
6292
06:45
I've found in a long time. It's simply this:
136
405590
2034
06:47
The back of the hand is formally called the opisthenar.
137
407624
4182
06:51
Now that's embarrassing, because up until now,
138
411806
3673
06:55
every time I've said, "I know it like the back of my hand,"
139
415479
3200
06:58
I've really been saying, "I'm totally familiar with that,
140
418679
2359
07:01
I just don't know it's freaking name, right?"
141
421038
2586
07:03
And the link I clicked on here,
142
423624
3654
07:07
well, lemurs, monkeys and chimpanzees have the little opisthenar.
143
427278
4152
07:11
I click on chimpanzee, and I get our closest genetic relative.
144
431430
4250
07:15
Pan troglodytes, the name we give him, means "cave dweller."
145
435680
3991
07:19
He doesn't.
146
439671
1504
07:21
He lives in rainforests and savannas.
147
441175
1824
07:22
It's just that we're always thinking of this guy as lagging behind us,
148
442999
3207
07:26
evolutionarily or somehow uncannily creeping up on us,
149
446206
3064
07:29
and in some cases, he gets places before us.
150
449270
3674
07:32
Like my next link, the almost irresistible link, Ham the Astrochimp.
151
452944
5222
07:38
I click on him, and I really thought he was going to bring me full circle twice, in fact.
152
458166
4178
07:42
He's born in Cameroon,
153
462344
1200
07:43
which is smack in the middle of my tropics map,
154
463544
3760
07:47
and more specifically his skeleton wound up in the Smithsonian museum getting picked clean by beetles.
155
467304
6222
07:53
In between those two landmarks in Ham's life,
156
473526
2953
07:56
he flew into space.
157
476479
2536
07:59
He experienced weightlessness and re-entry
158
479015
3237
08:02
months before the first human being to do it,
159
482252
2571
08:04
Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
160
484823
2864
08:07
When I click on Yuri Gagarin's page,
161
487687
2152
08:09
I get this guy who was surprisingly short in stature,
162
489839
2919
08:12
huge in heroism.
163
492758
1537
08:14
Top estimates, Soviet estimates, put this guy at 1.65 meters,
164
494295
4343
08:18
that is less than five and a half feet tall max,
165
498638
3001
08:21
possibly because he was malnourished as a child.
166
501639
2806
08:24
Germans occupied Russia.
167
504445
2545
08:26
A Nazi officer took over the Gagarin household,
168
506990
3097
08:30
and he and his family built and lived in a mud hut.
169
510087
2804
08:32
Years later, the boy from that cramped mud hut
170
512891
3547
08:36
would grow up to be the man in that cramped capsule
171
516438
3506
08:39
on the tip of a rocket
172
519944
1614
08:41
who volunteered to be launched into outer space,
173
521558
3488
08:45
the first one of any of us to really physically leave this planet.
174
525046
4352
08:49
And he didn't just leave it,
175
529398
1348
08:50
he circled it once.
176
530746
2525
08:53
Fifty years later, as a tribute,
177
533271
2226
08:55
the International Space Station, which is still up there tonight,
178
535497
3927
08:59
synced its orbit with Gagarin's orbit,
179
539424
4080
09:03
at the exact same time of day,
180
543504
1166
09:04
and filmed it,
181
544670
1560
09:06
so you can go online and you can watch over 100 minutes
182
546230
3584
09:09
of what must have been an absolutely mesmerizing ride,
183
549814
3509
09:13
possibly a lonely one,
184
553323
1141
09:14
the first person to ever see such a thing.
185
554464
2280
09:16
And then when you've had your fill of that,
186
556744
1423
09:18
you can click on one more link.
187
558167
2617
09:20
You can come back to Earth.
188
560784
1342
09:22
You return to where you started.
189
562126
2161
09:24
You can finish your game.
190
564287
2217
09:26
You just need to find one more fact that you didn't know.
191
566504
3590
09:30
And for me, I quickly landed on this one:
192
570094
2480
09:32
The Earth has a tolerance of about .17 percent from the reference spheroid,
193
572574
5016
09:37
which is less than the .22 percent allowed in billiard balls.
194
577590
3969
09:41
This is the kind of fact I would have loved as a boy.
195
581559
2432
09:43
I found it myself.
196
583991
1247
09:45
It's got some math that I can do.
197
585238
2275
09:47
I'm pretty sure my dad doesn't know it.
198
587513
2125
09:49
What this means is that if you could shrink the Earth to the size of a billiard ball,
199
589638
5489
09:55
if you could take planet Earth, with all its mountain tops and caves
200
595127
6017
10:01
and rainforests, astronauts and uncontacted tribes and chimpanzees, voodoo dolls,
201
601144
4676
10:05
fireflies, chocolate, sea creatures making love in the deep blue sea,
202
605820
5524
10:11
you just shrink that to the size of a billiard ball,
203
611344
3201
10:14
it would be as smooth as a billiard ball,
204
614545
3893
10:18
presumably a billiard ball with a slight bulge around the middle.
205
618438
4617
10:23
That's pretty cool.
206
623055
2791
10:25
I didn't know that.
207
625846
1944
10:27
Chimborazo!
208
627790
2225
10:30
Thank you.
209
630015
889
10:30
(Applause)
210
630904
649
About this website

This site will introduce you to YouTube videos that are useful for learning English. You will see English lessons taught by top-notch teachers from around the world. Double-click on the English subtitles displayed on each video page to play the video from there. The subtitles scroll in sync with the video playback. If you have any comments or requests, please contact us using this contact form.

https://forms.gle/WvT1wiN1qDtmnspy7